Indulge me, if you will, to talk a bit about Brunswick, North Carolina. You see, Brunswick and this blog have something of a history. Way back in 2006, the Brunswick County Board of Education in North Carolina was on track to approve a controversial and vaguely-worded policy that would allow for the distribution of religious materials on school grounds. Legal threats didn’t seem to faze them until Llewellyn Worldwide offered to distribute free books on Wicca and Paganism to school children. Faster than you could say “Galloping Gideons”, the Brunswick board backed down from their plan, and someone fortuitously caught that delicious moment in a photo.

Since then, the Brunswick board would pop up occasionally to threaten a ban on Harry Potter, or attempt to inject Creationism into the curriculum, and I’d get to run that awesome photo again. Good times. So imagine my reaction when I learn that the Brunswick County Commissioners are considering ending public invocations due to fear that they might have to include Witches in the mix.

Brunswick County’s commissioners could be dropping their traditional prayer before public meetings. The consideration of changing from an opening invocation to a moment of silence comes after a StarNews report on a late-night board meeting in which commissioners vehemently opposed Commissioner Charles Warren’s request to allow outside clergy to pray before the board meetings. Traditionally the commissioners have given the invocation. Commissioner Phil Norris, who is also a pastor, said Wednesday that, after much thought on the issue, he now thinks the board should hold a moment of silence instead of the prayer. “I think, after thinking about this for some time, the way I see the Constitution it provides all of us with freedom of religion or freedom to not have any religion,” he said. Norris’ original reaction to Warren’s request was: “If we do that, do we have to invite witches?”

If you think that’s something, take a gander at the actual transcript!

Commissioner Charles Warren: Mr. Chairman, I’m basically, I’m still trying to keep the community involved in our board meetings and things of this nature. So I’m recommending that we invite different clergies, priests, rabbis throughout the community to come in and do our invocation of services.

Commissioner Phil Norris: If we do that do we have to invite witches and uh…

Commissioner Marty Cooke: My godson has a witch who’s his mother in law…

County Attorney Huey Marshall: We’ve got the largest monestary of Buddhists between DC and Atlanta

Sue: Buddhists?

It gets even better after that, with one commissioner threatening to walk out if a Buddhist is allowed to do an opening prayer, and another more than willing to waste tax-dollars on a lengthy lawsuit over the matter. It remains to be seen what the Brunswick County Commissioners will end up actually doing, but with a recent court room loss for sectarian opening prayers in North Carolina, they may have to go silent if they don’t want to endure the Buddhists and Witches (and a lengthy court battle).  This not only shows what some religiously conservative-dominated local governments truly feel about religious diversity, but also shows the unintended power modern Pagans hold in places like Brunswick simply by existing.

Some of you may remember our old friends on the Brunswick County School Board of North Carolina. Back in 2006 they tried to allow Christian groups to hand out religious literature on school campuses, a plan that was scuttled when Pagan publisher Llewellyn Worldwide told the board they would provide free books for local Pagans to hand out in schools.

Brunswick County Board of Education considering Pagan books.

“Board member Shirley Babson says she’s not afraid of potential lawsuits. She’s afraid of giving the appearance that the board approves of the literature groups would show the kids. “If I put something like this on the table, kids are going to say ‘Mrs. Babson thinks that’s alright. Mrs. Babson thinks that’s fine,’ ” Babson said.”

Then, in 2007, the Brunswick Board petulantly threatened to ban Harry Potter books from their libraries in seeming retaliation against the Witches.

“Brunswick County school officials will consider a procedure for students’ parents to challenge books available at school libraries … Board member Shirley Babson said some parents have expressed that books such as the Harry Potter series represent witchcraft and promote the practice of Wicca. Board member Jimmy Hobbs said he sees the importance of reviewing the policy. ‘The issue is a valid issue,’ Hobbs said. ‘I’m not attacking Harry Potter. When the issue of Bibles in schools came up last year, the ones that raised the most opposition was the group known as Wicca. Does this policy give them a free pass to get their materials into the schools? When distributing materials, we should be careful by not being biased. Is Wicca being allowed, in other ways, to the exclusion of Christian literature?’”

Now our old pals are back again, and this time they want to “teach the controversy” by introducing creationism into their curriculum.

“Articles in the Wilmington, North Carolina Star News on Tuesday and Wednesday report that the Brunswick County (NC) School Board is looking for a way to teach creationism in the schools. The issue was raised at Tuesday’s board meeting by parent Joel Fanti who told the board that it was unfair for evolution to be taught as a fact. Fanti said: ‘I wasn’t here 2 million years ago. If evolution is so slow, why don’t we see anything evolving now?’ School board member Jimmy Hobbs responded: ‘It’s really a disgrace for the state school board to impose evolution on our students without teaching creationism. The law says we can’t have Bibles in schools, but we can have evolution, of the atheists.’”

Sadly, while their hearts want to teach children that people were hanging out with dinosaurs, state law prevents them from teaching religious dogma in science classes.

“But neither creationism nor the related “intelligent design,” which says life forms are so complex only a higher power could have created them, may be taught as a required course of study, Edd Dunlap, science section chief for the N.C. Department of Public Instruction, said Wednesday. These are considered religious teachings and may not be taught in science class or as fact, although they may be included as part of an elective, such as a course on religion or philosophy, he said.”

Looks like the Brunswick Board has been foiled again! You know, maybe they should turn their attention to actually improving the schools they oversee instead of constantly hatching plots to insert Christian religion into the school district. If they truly feel that the only good education is a Christian education, maybe they should move into the private sector.

Last year the Brunswick County Board of Education (in North Carolina) decided to vote on a new policy that would allow groups to hand out religious tracts in Brunswick County schools. This policy was meant to smooth the legal road for local Christian groups wanting to distribute Bibles and tracts on school property. But things went a bit awry when Pagan/New Age publisher Llewellyn said they would use the new policy to distribute free copies of their books through local Pagan and Wiccan organizations.

“As a publisher we are committed to the dissemination of information and recognize that indeed there is much misunderstanding in the mainstream community about so-called alternative religions and we think that our books can help clarify some of these misconceptions. We regularly donate a handful of titles here and there to various pagan organizations and festivals as part of our regular publicity and outreach programs. While we are usually approached by pagan organizations looking for donations, this time we were proactive in our approach.”

Brunswick County Board of Education considering Pagan books.

Unsurprisingly, the Board indefinitely tabled the vote, fearing the consequences of real religious liberty. Now that merry band of concerned conservative Christian officials, proving that revenge is a dish best served cold, are looking to pass a new religiously-motivated procedure.

“Brunswick County school officials will consider a procedure for students’ parents to challenge books available at school libraries … Board member Shirley Babson said some parents have expressed that books such as the Harry Potter series represent witchcraft and promote the practice of Wicca. Board member Jimmy Hobbs said he sees the importance of reviewing the policy. ‘The issue is a valid issue,’ Hobbs said. ‘I’m not attacking Harry Potter. When the issue of Bibles in schools came up last year, the ones that raised the most opposition was the group known as Wicca. Does this policy give them a free pass to get their materials into the schools? When distributing materials, we should be careful by not being biased. Is Wicca being allowed, in other ways, to the exclusion of Christian literature?’”

Take that Wicca! We are totally going to let Christian parents challenge all those Harry Potter books you sneakily placed in our libraries! They must not have heard that Harry Potter is written by a Christian and contains Christian themes. I’m sure no bad publicity will come from this move, it isn’t like anyone reads Harry Potter anyway. I await further updates with bated breath.

I recently reported on the tabling of a controversial policy on the disbursement of religious literature by the Brunswick County school board. What was the reason this conservative-minded school board backed off handing out bibles in schools? Not legal action (which would make them heroes to other conservative Christian-types), but the threat of free Pagan books.

I bring this all up again due to the great picture published yesterday in The State Port Pilot. This snapshot really captures the essence of this conflict.

“I am afraid of the mess we will create with this, I’m okay with Bibles, but not with sending this kind of message.” – Shirley Babson, school board vice-chairman

I would like to thank Babson, and the rest of the school board, for boosting the popularity of our faiths in North Carolina. Modern Paganism may soon become the rebellion of choice for local students thanks to that photo. No doubt Llewellyn will thank you for all the free publicity.